As is generally known, when used in the sterile environment of an operating room, a surgeon's gown must prevent contamination of the patient, surgical instruments and other personnel which might occur from contact with the wearer. The gown should also prevent the clothes of the wearer from coming in contact with blood and other liquids generated during surgical procedures.
Surgical gowns were originally made of cotton or linen and were sterilized prior to use in the operating room. These gowns, however, permitted penetration or "strike-through" of the various liquids encountered in surgical procedures, resulting in the soiling of the wearer's clothes and allowing, in some instances, a path to be established for transmission of bacteria to and from the wearer of the gown. Another disadvantage of the materials used in these gowns is that they tend to form lint which is capable of becoming airborne or clinging to the clothes of the wearer, thereby providing another potential source of contamination. Since these gowns were costly, laundering and sterilization procedures were required before reuse.
Disposable surgical gowns have largely replaced the linen surgical gown and many are now made in part or entirely from fluid repellent or impervious fabrics to prevent strike-through.
Many surgical procedures, such as arthroscopies, cystoscopies and craniotomies, to name only a few, by their nature involve large volumes of fluid. To be suitable for such surgical operations, an operating room gown must provide sterility while affording the wearer adequate protection from the high potential for strike-through by the liquids generated in such procedures.
Many of these procedures require the operating surgeon to be mobile and to assume a sitting position. Thus, the surgeon may be required to move to different positions around the operating table without rising. This may be accomplished by using a movable stool provided with wheels or rollers in its base or legs. In order to shift positions along the operating table or to more closely approach the operating table, the surgeon frequently is required to spread his legs apart. Conventional surgical gowns generally have configurations which do not provide for sufficient movement of the lower extremities, particularly while in a sitting position. Although the surgeon has had the option, heretofore, of using a larger gown, this solution also has certain associated shortcomings. Specifically, the limited conformity of the generally planar structure of the gown, particularly of the disposable type, to the non-planar form of the wearer and the excess portions of material located in the chest, shoulder and underarm regions, which material in a disposable garment frequently lacks drape and hand, causes a ballooning or bunching up of material which results in annoyance and distraction to the surgeon.
Other requirements of surgical gowns suitable for use in high fluid procedures are imperviousness to liquids and full coverage of the wearer. Thus, the gown must provide adequate protection against strike-through, should be so configured to minimize large numbers of folds which could trap liquids, and should be so dimensioned as to cover most of the body surface between the wearer's feet and neck.
A further problem of back-opening surgical gowns of the type which are configured in the lower extremities so as to provide sufficient girth to permit the wearer to separate his legs widely is the tendency for the lower corners of the side or back flaps to drag on the operating room floor when the wearer assumes a sitting position. This presents a potential safety hazard if the trailing corners are sufficiently long to become caught beneath the wheels or rollers of the stool, or the feet of the surgeon or other operating room personnel. It is also undesirable in a high fluid environment to have the gown drag on a wet floor.